This blog will present news items about the motion picture business, with emphasis on lower budget, independent film in most cases. Some reviews or commentaries on specific films, with emphasis on significance (artistic or political) or comparison, are presented. Note: No one pays me for these reviews; they are not "endorsements"!

About Me

Since the 1990s I have been very involved with fighting the military "don't ask don't tell" policy for gays in the military, and with First Amendment issues. Best contact is 571-334-6107 (legitimate calls; messages can be left; if not picked up retry; I don't answer when driving) Three other url's: doaskdotell.com, billboushka.com johnwboushka.com Links to my URLs are provided for legitimate content and user navigation purposes only.
My legal name is "John William Boushka" or "John W. Boushka"; my parents gave me the nickname of "Bill" based on my middle name, and this is how I am generally greeted. This is also the name for my book authorship. On the Web, you can find me as both "Bill Boushka" and "John W. Boushka"; this has been the case since the late 1990s. Sometimes I can be located as "John Boushka" without the "W." That's the identity my parents dealt me in 1943!

Friday, June 20, 2014

"The Homestretch" documents the lives of three homeless teens in Chicago public high schools; the QA turns out to be challenging

I attended the screening of “The Homestretch” at the Naval
Archive Theater on Friday morning (today), as an event of AFI-Docs, found it
about half full, and heard that the screening last night in Silver Spring was a
sell out. The documentary on homeless
teens in Chicago public high schools, directed by Anne De Mare and Kristin
Kelly, is moving; but what marked today’s
event was not just the film itself, but the challenging nature of the comments
by several people (not just the filmmakers) in the QA. I recorded a lot of it, and will present all
of my footage soon on another Wordpress blog.

The speakers bluntly challenged audience members to become
involved with homeless young people. It
wasn’t clear if the remarks were intended mainly for other teachers or
administrators or for the public as a whole.
The kids need personal attention and “mentoring” (said to be a bad
word). Also, Kristin said that 40% of
the homeless teens that she interviewed were LGBT.

The film traces three teenagers: Anthony, Roque, and
Kasey. Roque (Hispanic) actually lives
in a teacher’s home. I’ve never heard of
a teacher’s offering shelter before.
Anthony (black) has fathered a child at 14, and that child has been
taken from the mother and put into foster care.
He has committed petty theft and been arrested trying to survive in the
street. Kasey (black) seems to have been thrown out of
home because she is a lesbian. Roque
gets into acting, and plays a part in Shakespeare’s Hamlet convincingly. He applies to Northeastern Illinois University and
gets in (after paperwork reconsideration) despite a low GPA. But he still has to get some paperwork done
with immigration to work legally.
Anthony gets mentored, and enters a high-tech education program, and
gets a subsidy to have his own apartment.
Kasey winds up in a mental hospital for a while.

The film also showed the Belfort Center shelter, and the
Temporary Living Situation and Program (TLS and TLP) issues. It also shows another facility called the
Crib Emergency Shelter, where kids line up on cold nights to get in.

The official site is here from Kartemquin Films. The film will appear on PBS Independent Lens at some point in the future (probably Spring 2015, after a theatrical run).

Ironically (or coincidentally), a CD issued by composer and pianist Timo Andres, reviewed on the Drama blog Aug. 1, 2013, is called "Home Stretch" (two words), as is a piano concerto on the album that he composed.

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